Words of a wise Owl
by TheWiseOneEyedOwl
Summary: What if Kaneki Ken had been born a one-eyed ghoul to a human mother and a ghoul father. What if, when the CCG came for his family, he escaped and was saved by none other than the One Eyed Owl.
1. Chapter 1

Drip, drip, drip. The rain began to slowly drop on the pavement in the deserted alley, soaking the small, black haired figure which stumbled forwards, seemingly delirious.

The young boy took another step and then stumbled, falling face first to the ground, and abruptly losing consciousness.

* * *

 _Splish, splash._

 _What was that?_

 _Splish, splash._

 _Footsteps in the rain._

 _Splish, splash._

 _It's the end, they've come for me, too._

 _Splish…_

Just as the young boy braced himself for the end, he felt a hand gently caressing the top of his head. He looked up, expecting to see a suited ghoul investigator, poised to kill, but instead saw a young girl looking down at him, with shoulder length green hair and a kind smile.

"Don't worry," She said, "I'll keep you safe now."

The last thing the four-year old Kaneki Ken noticed before falling unconscious was the curious colour of the girl's eyes. The left was a pleasant green, but the right… the right was the bloodshot black orb of a ghoul.

 _Just like me,_ he thought, as he slipped back into unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

2 years later.

Kaneki and Eto stood upon a tall building in the first district, looking down on what could possibly be the most dangerous area in all of Tokyo. Below them, they could see multiple gangs of ghouls moving swiftly from shadow to shadow, converging on an empty, poorly lit, square. There was no doubt in their minds that this was preparation for a bloodbath.

* * *

 _2 years prior._

 _Kaneki Ken opened his bleary eyes and looked at his surroundings. It seemed he was in a large, empty and rather poorly lit space. Focusing his vision, he noticed the girl with green hair standing a few feet away from him. She seemed a little older than him, maybe ten years of age._

" _Where am I," He said, trying to concentrate._

" _An empty underground passage in the 24th ward. I took you here after I found you fleeing those doves."_

" _My… my parents?" The boy managed to force out, despite his dread at the answer._

" _The doves killed them," was the deadpan response._

She doesn't look very sad, _he thought._

 _Sensing his reaction, the girl said "Sadness just isn't in my character." She sounded almost sorry. Almost._

 _The boy closed his eyes for a moment, too spent to cry. "Who are you?" he asked._

" _You can call me Eto."_

 _The boy stayed silent for a moment, then said, "I'm Kaneki Ken. I'm rather hungry."_

 _At this, Eto smiled. It wasn't a happy smile, he noted. It was so wide it looked almost insane. It was, all in all, he later would reflect, a rather mad smile._

" _Humans taste best," she said, "but the way to gain strength, strength enough to beat any dove…" She paused and smiled, seeing she had the younger ghoul's attention, "Is to eat ghouls."_

* * *

Kaneki smiled at the memory, just as the ghoul gangs converged in the empty square, ready for a fight.

 _Oh yes,_ he thought as he and Eto dove off the skyscraper and into the fray of ghouls. _This will be a bloodbath… and a kingly feast._

* * *

The next morning, as the sun rose over the forsaken backstreets of the first district, it would witness fewer ghouls than had been seen in months, and just one more bloody square, which would be washed away, like so many before it, in the next rainfall.


	3. Chapter 3

2 years later.

"Eto…"

"What is it, Ken"

"Nothing… It's just that sometimes I wonder where I would be if you weren't here."

There was a brief moment of silence between the two, before Eto sighed and took the younger boy by the shoulders.

"Listen, Ken. Remember when I told you that I'd grown up without a father?"

The boy nodded.

"If.." she tried to continue, but found it difficult to figure out what to say or, more specifically, how to say it. "If I ever do disappear or you ever do end up alone, there's somewhere where I want you to promise to go."

The boy avoided her gaze, hesitantly saying, "That won't be necessary... will it?"

"It's always best to cover all possibilities," she said, deftly avoiding the question. "If you are ever in need of help, I want you to head to a café in the twentieth ward. It's called Anteiku."

Kaneki was silent for a moment, trying to find a suitable response. Finally, he settled for, "Why that café? Why not anywhere else?"

"The person who own that café… is my biological father."

For a moment, Kaneki thought he say something flicker across the face of his friend. An emotion he had never seen there before. It was almost as though she was… sad.

 _No,_ he thought, _I definitely saw sadness on her face, if only for just a moment._

He grabbed her hands of his shoulders and held them in his, hesitating for a moment, trying to find his words.

"Fine," he responded, "I promise… but only if you promise me one thing, too."

"What is it?"

"Don't be sad," he said, squeezing her hands. "It's just not in your character."


	4. Chapter 4

Eto looked down at the younger half-ghoul, who was still sleeping.

It hadn't been a casual, offhanded comment when she'd said that sadness just wasn't in her character. It wasn't. Since she'd been abandoned at birth by her father, it simply wasn't an emotion that came to her. She couldn't even feel anything approaching it, except perhaps in relation to Kaneki Ken.

 _What,_ she mused, _pushed me to save him from the doves that day. Did I pity him because he was an orphan, just like me? Was it empathy? Nonsense. I can't feel empathy any more than sadness. It was because I sensed the potential in him._

She almost felt secure in that assertion when a little voice in her head felt the need to remind her of something. _If that's the case, then why did you tell him to go to_ _ **that place**_ _._

She sighed. Perhaps, with just this one person, she cared a little. Perhaps, even though he'd be under the guidance of **that man** , who'd abandoned her fourteen years before, she felt comforted by the fact that he'd be safe.

Perhaps that was why she was now abandoning him, to go fight the doves. Perhaps, if she could annihilate all of them, if she could use all of her immense power, he'd be safe. Or perhaps she was just attempting to justify her actions.

And, as she took one last look at the dingy cave, hidden deep within the twenty-fourth ward, something seemed to strike Eto. A familiar madness came over her features, and her favourite insane smile settled on her face.

Then, flashing into a sprint and flying through the twenty-fourth ward at breakneck speed, the One Eyed Owl threw her head back and laughed maniacally.

* * *

Kenaki brutally snapped out of sleep, his one ghoul eye blazing. Something was wrong, something was off in the small cave he and Eto had been inhabiting for the past while. He sprung up into a crouch and darted his eyes around the room. No one was there… not even Eto.

It was not unusual for Eto to leave before he woke up, sometimes disappearing for several days on end. However, this time, a great sense of unease began to build in the pit of Kaneki's stomach.

 _Something is wrong,_ he thought, as he took a deep breath of air through his nose. _Something is different this time._

Without a second thought, he broke into a run, flying through the twenty fourth ward in pursuit of the scent.

* * *

Kaneki flew out into the open, eyes wildly flashing in every direction. He landed on a nearby building and inhaled the breeze.

 _I can't find her..._

Try as he might, the wind outside had snatched up the path, and Eto was nowhere to be seen.

 _She's gone..._

And no matter how much he wanted to, Kaneki Ken could not hold back his tears.


	5. Chapter 5 - AN and Edit to Chapter 4

**IMPORTANT A/N: FOR THE SAKE OF MAINTAINING A CONTINUOUS AND SENSIBLE PLOT IN A REALISTIC TIME FRAME, I REWROTE THE VERY LAST PART OF CHAPTER 4. FOR THOSE WHO HAVE ALREADY READ THE PRE-UPDATE VERSION, RATHER THAN KANEKI BEING CAUGHT BY A DOVE, THE NEW ENDING IS AS FOLLOWS.**

Kaneki flew out into the open, eyes wildly flashing in every direction. He landed on a nearby building and inhaled the breeze.

 _I can't find her..._

Try as he might, the wind outside had snatched up the path, and Eto was nowhere to be seen.

 _She's gone..._

And no matter how much he wanted to, Kaneki Ken could not hold back his tears.

 **Sorry for the all caps at the beginning, just making sure this is seen as it is a pretty significant change to that chapter. The continuation should be posted up shortly.**


	6. Chapter 6

Kaneki's eyes bolted open and he sat up, drenched in cold sweat.

 _She's gone, she's gone… Why did she leave?_

It had been the same every morning for the past month or so. Wake up early from a nightmare, wonder why Eto had left, miserably try to sleep again and, when he couldn't, run himself to exhaustion searching the twenty-fourth ward.

He stepped off his mattress, knowing that he would not fall back asleep until his body forced him back to rest. With that in mind, he bolted off into the familiar network of tunnels below Tokyo.

* * *

He had been running for perhaps fifteen minutes when something hit him mid stride, causing him to smash painfully face-first into the hard concrete floor. In a flash, he rolled to his feet and, ignoring his aching cheek, turned to face his assailant.

It was a ghoul, of course, and not a particularly pleasant one. His gangly, bony figure stood at roughly six feet tall and was crowned by an irritating smirk and a blond crew but. Kaneki didn't know his name, but he had seen him taunting Eto several times, only to be sent flying by a simple swipe of her Kagune. How the hell this guy was still alive, Kaneki did not know.

"So," the ghoul said, "The little prick is out without his asshole big sister, eh?"

Kaneki didn't respond, he only kept his eyes trained on the opponent.

"I suppose," the ghoul continued, "She finally wised up to how unwelcome she was here and ditched your sorry, weak a-"

He was cut off mid-sentence by a dash and a swipe of Kaneki's hand, which would have dealt a significant amount of damage, had he not cleanly sidestepped it.

"Maybe I'll kill you," the ghoul said, "just to spite that stupid bitch."

He spun around and launched himself forwards, hitting Kaneki with a body slam and launching him ten feet into the concrete wall of the tunnel.

Kaneki fell to the ground, winded and likely nursing a few broken ribs.

The other ghoul leisurely began to move towards him, as though he had not a care in the world. He stopped about two feet from the collapsed boy and said, "Well, I suppose this is it for you. You're even weaker than I thought. I guess that bitch did nothing but save you ass the-"

He was interrupted by a swipe of Kaneki's tentacle-like Kagune, which severed his head cleanly from where is was attached to the rest of his body.

 _This is no good,_ thought a fuming Kaneki, _If he hadn't gotten so full of himself and distracted, I was toast._

It was just then that it hit him how much he had relied on Eto's help. He wasn't a weak ghoul, per se, but she had always protected him and fed him to a certain degree. He simply wasn't strong enough to take on an alert opponent twice his age.

 _This is no good,_ he thought, as he sank his teeth into the other ghoul's flesh. _I have to be stronger to survive. I can't go to that coffee shop like this, I'll be turned away for sure. I'll live on my own for a while longer._

Yes, he had relied a lot on Eto. That was why he couldn't understand that she had just left so abruptly. There must have been more of a reason to it than that, he thought, desperately trying to reason through his abandonment. No, he wouldn't go straight to Anteiku. He'd try on his own for a while longer.

 _But not here,_ he thought. _Too many memories._

Maybe he'd scour the other wards again. After all, if he needed to become stronger, the best thing to do was fight.


	7. Chapter 7

5 years later.

Kaneki Ken flew aimlessly through the seventeenth ward. He was not particularly hungry that night, and even if that wasn't the case, he hadn't seen may ghouls and had no intent to eat the humans. There had been rumours of CCG activity on the border of the seventeenth and the twentieth ward, and many of the weaker ghouls in this area did not want to draw undue attention to themselves. Kaneki himself had no intention of confronting the CCG if he could help it. All it would do was put pressure on the area and have him looking over his own shoulder at all hours of the day.

What Kaneki was interested in was the _reason_ the investigators were in the area: it was rumoured that the One Eyed Owl had been spotted recently nearby.

He still didn't know why Eto had left, but it would be a lie to say that he didn't care. He had become fairly independent after being left alone, but the abrupt loss of the person that had saved his life and cared for him after his parents' murder cut deep into his heart.

He was jerked out of his thoughts by the sounds of a fight in the street below. He ground to a halt, crouching on the roof of a neighbouring small building, and looked intently at the combattants, expecting doves. Instead, he saw something he entirely didn't expect. A girl roughly his age, covered in blood and seemingly hurt, was being cornered by five ghouls, and while, from his vantage point, her eyes were obscured by her blue hair, he was certain that she was a ghoul, as well.

He could tell that she was not from the seventeenth ward, mainly because he had spent quite a bit of time there. No, considering their location on the western edge of the ward, it was likely that she had come from the far more peaceful twentieth ward, overseen by Anteiku.

 _Anteiku,_ he thought. He had never been in dire need of any assistance, nor had he ever been able to work up the nerve to go to the place for the sake of a promise made days before _she_ had abandoned him, but if there was a chance this girl was from there, he felt that he couldn't just let the five other ghouls kill her. Especially since he knew them all to be cannibals.

 _Oh well,_ he thought, as he waited for his moment to strike. _I never liked those assholes anyway._

And, just as the lead ghoul's Kagune swept towards the girl, and she made a desperate attempt to dodge, Kaneki swept his Kagune out and parried the blow, jumping off the building and into the street below.

The three ghouls just stared, gaping, at him. _Morons,_ he thought. _They're not even moving._

He swept his Kagune out in a semicircle in front of him, and blew the five idiots backwards about fifty feet. He was glad they were at least strong enough to have not died on impact, he didn't want to kill them and then have to hide the bodies from the CCG.

Fortunately, they took the message, and made haste in scraping themselves off the pavement and fleeing back into the seventeenth ward.

Turning around, Kaneki found himself face to face with the girl, who had taken up a fighting stance, he winglike Kagune sprouting out of her back.

"You're in absolutely no state to fight, you know," he remarked.

"So what, then? I suppose you're going to try to eat me, now that you've chased them away," she spat back, her voice laced with venom.

"Hardly," he replied. "Besides, those are some pretty serious injuries you have, and you look rather sick. I suspect you'll be passing out right about now."

And, perfectly timed, her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she fell unconscious.

 _Unbelievable,_ he thought, as he caught her before she could hit the pavement. _Now I have to carry her back to that bloody café, assuming that's where she's even from._

 _Oh well,_ he thought, as he jumped onto the nearest rooftop and began to head towards the centre of the twentieth ward. At least that gave him a motivation to stop avoiding the place. At the very least, he was curious about its owner.

 **A/N:Please leave a review with your opinion as well as any criticism or suggestions. I'll try my best to respond to them.  
**

 **A/N #2: I apologize for the short chapter length. I wrote and published these all as they came to me, but they essentially amount to one big prologue. Now that the base is all laid out, I'll be writing an outline for the rest and future chapters will be longer. Since the story diverges from canon at the start of Kaneki's life, I'll need to plan his character out so that it makes sense within the new context. In any case, I'm having a lot of fun with this so far, and I hope you all are, too.**


End file.
